Law compelling President to appoint ministers from Parliament doesn’t make sense – Prof Kofi Abotsi
The Dean of UPSA Law School, Professor Kofi Abotsi has called for a review of Article 78 Clause 1 of the 1992 Constitution, which requires the President to appoint majority of his ministers from Parliament.
According to him, that constitutional provision “doesn’t seem to make sense both in operational and philosophical terms.”
He acknowledged though that the framers of the Constitution had the best of intensions as they sought to prevent tension between the two arms government. Nonetheless, he found the fusion of executive with legislature problematic.
“I think the 1981 coup d’etat didn’t happen because of the constitutional crisis due to the clean break between the legislature and executive. I think 1981 had its own problems. So 1992 could have still had a clean break because the two are populated by parties.
“The executive is populated by the winning party and the legislature is populated by political parties of different persuasions and so invariably, that coordination is expected to be there,” he said.
Prof Abotsi made this assertion on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Thursday while speaking on the topic, ‘Constitutional Governance and Disappointments, 30 years On’.
He believed that a strong executive with a stronger legislature is the prudent way to bring about development and growth in the country.
“The structure of the Constitution generally establishes a strong executive and a strong executive is not a bad thing. So a strong executive when carefully moderated will lead to efficient government,” he noted.
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